I'm glad we knocked the Whitesocks out of the race, just to know it bothers their TV announcers.
If you ever watch the WhiteSox on WGN-TV, replace the audio with Pink Floyd's "Dark of the Moon." You'll learn more about what's happening. I recently listened to Steve Stone and Ken "I invented the Batting Glove" Harrelson. Incredible. Compared to them, Michael Kay is Walter Cronkite.
Mostly, it's Harrelson, "the Hawk," the former Whitesock GM who -- when he wasn't golfing -- fired Tony LaRussa and traded Bobby Bonilla for Jose DeLeon. Yeesh. It's as if they miked a bench jockey in the dugout.
If Thome hits a long fly, he yells, "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!" Off Arod's bat, it's "GET FOUL GET FOUL GET FOUL!" Chicago is the "good guys." Close play? "SAFE!" as if to overrule the ump.
We laugh at Sterling's over-the-top calls, but he can't carry Harrelson's throat spray.
Back in 1978, Harrelson was a mouth-for-pay working for the Redsocks. Here's how he called Bucky Dent's home run, put into poetry form. (Don't ask why I did this, but I did; it's authentic; you'll have to trust me, though I don't know why anyone would.)
Monday, August 31, 2009
Nice to sweep the Whitesox announcers
THE LAST GUY YOU'D EXPECT IT FROM
Ball hit hard to left field.
Yastremski goes back.
He looks up.
It's gonna be...
Outahere.
A home run for Bucky Dent.
Yankees lead it three to two.
A dramatic two-out home run
In the top of the sixth
Uhhh-
Seventh inning.
Oct. 2, 1978
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
8 comments:
Having no other option, I was forced to watch the game on WGN on Friday night. It was horrible listening to those guys. They've got to be the worst announcers in all of baseball. I knew we'd walk off and couldnt wait to hear it. For anyone who missed it, it went down like this:
Announcer: Ya know that Cano is a great ball player. He tends to stay hidden in this Yankee line up but hes one of the best in baseball and certainly on this star studded team.
::crack::
Announcer: This game is over.
::silence while Cano rounds the bases::
Hahahahahaha......Can-owned...dont ya know?
I watched the Whitesock blow-out victory over us two weeks ago, and it still boils my blood, the way those bastards cackled. If I could have gotten my hands around Harrelson's throat, it would have been the last home run call he ever made.
Harrelson is an asshole. That is well known, but...
Let's hear it for his partner, too, Steve "Mono" Stone, whose vapid announcing style was a key factor in the elevation of Harry Caray from a boring, philandering, hack into a broadcast deity.
When paired with Caray, ex-jock Stone invariably made the dyspeptic, Budweiser-swilling Caray seem... exciting, even insightful ... in contrast to his soporific babbling.
Holy cow my ass!
Whitey,
It wasn't Budweiser. First of all, that would be supporting the Cardinals owner. Second, what good old Harry was swilling was of considerably higher ethanol content.
Silence is a big improvement over the commentary of the Hawk and Stony.
That's funny. the website Awful Announcing has john Sterling and Suzyn Waldman at the top of their over the top homer announcers. Pot....meet kettle.
Oh god. I'm an upstate NY native. When I lived in Corning, I got WGN. Mostly, the baseball they showed were Cubs games. Good enough. I could not stand anytime they put on White Sox games, even when I watched neutrally. I enjoyed the silence that "Hawk" emitted anytime something bad happened to the White Sox. There was only one thing worse than the "STRETCH! YOU CAN PUT IT ON THE BOOOOOOOAAAAAARD!!!!!! YES!!!!!!" shit after CHI HRs. That was the "HE GOWNNNNNE!" call following an opponent strikeout. Poke my ears out with a steaming hot rod.
Yes, Sterling is a bombastic clown with all the catch-phrases and operatic nuances he's opted for over the years (and Kay being some sort of giggly jester), but he(they) can describe a game with some semblance of competence. The way Harrelson calls a game makes me want to kill him with a pick-axe. And honestly, I have no feelings one way or another for the Right Socks. (as opposed to the Wrong Socks in Boston.) Die, Hawk, Die.
www.heavethehawk.com
I don't get YES in south Jersey and the 880 broadcasts are a little shaky at times so I usually listen on XM, which always carries the home team's broadcast. When the Yanks play the White Sox in Chicago, I always suffer through John & Suzyn through the static on my regular radio. The two White Sox radio announcers are the second worst in baseball (behind the guys who do the Astros games). They come nowhere near objectivity.
Post a Comment